Forget the past! Then his wild delirium had laid bare his soul! And the man who had so faithfully nursed him through the crisis now possessed the sordid details of this wretched life! Josè struggled to orient his undirected mind. A hot wave of anger swept over him at the thought that he was still living, that his battered soul had not torn itself from earth during his delirium and taken flight. Was he fated to live forever, to drag out an endless existence, with his heart written upon his sleeve for the world to read and turn to its own advantage? Rosendo had stood between him and death--but to what end? Had he not yet paid the score in full--good measure, pressed down and running over? His thoughts ran rapidly from one topic to another. Again they reverted to the little girl. He had dreamed of her in that week of black night. He wondered if he had also talked of her. He had lain at death's door--Rosendo had said so--but he had had no physician. Perhaps these simple folk brewed their own homely remedies--he wondered what they had employed in his case. Above the welter of his thoughts this question pressed for answer. "What medicine did you give me, Rosendo?" he feebly queried. "None, Padre." Josè's voice rose querulously in a little excess of excitement. "What! You left me here without medical aid, to live or die, as might be?" The gentle Rosendo laid a soothing hand upon the priest's feverish brow. "_Na_, Padre,"--there was a hurt tone in the soft answer--"we did all we could for you. We have neither doctors nor medicines. But we cared for you--and we prayed daily for your recovery. The little Carmen said our prayers would be answered--and, you see, they were." Again the child! "And what had she to do with my recovery?" Josè demanded fretfully. "_Quien sabe?_ It is sometimes that way when the little Carmen says people shall not die. And then," he added sadly, "sometimes they do die just the same. It is strange; we do not understand it." The gentle soul sighed its perplexity. Josè looked up at him keenly. "Did the child say I should not die?" he asked softly, almost in a whisper. "Yes, Padre; she says God's children do not die," returned Rosendo. The priest's blood stopped in its mad surge and slowly began to chill. God's children do not die! What uncanny influence had he met with here in this crumbling, forgotten town? He sought the index of his memory for the sensations he had felt when he looked into the girl's eyes on his first morning in Simití. But memory reported back only impressions of goodness--beauty--love.